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U-M ME associate professor’s research group wins Manufacturing Leadership Award

07/26/2022
Kira Barton, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics.

At their annual awards gala, on June 29th, 2022, The National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Leadership Council, the world’s first member-driven, global business leadership network dedicated to senior executives in the manufacturing industry, awarded U-M ME Associate Professor Kira Barton’s Research Group a Manufacturing Leadership Award in the Council’s Collaborative Ecosystems category.

The Barton Research Group won this award jointly with Applied Dynamics Inc. (ADI), Dow Chemical Company (Dow), and the Digital Manufacturing Institute (MxD) for their collaborative project titled, “Digital Twins for Process Manufacturing: Open Architecture Industrial IoT Framework.”

Example of the digital twin framework implemented within an open automation platform at MxD.

The Manufacturing Leadership Council aims to support senior executives in defining and shaping a better future for themselves, their organizations, and their industry by concentrating on critical business and technological issues that will drive growth today and in the future.

According to a press release put out by ADI, this project began when MxD worked with their key member-manufacturers to identify “a critical technology gap preventing the widespread adoption of Industrial IoT and Digital Twin capability. Industrial IoT and Digital Twin technology enable you to access your manufacturing data in real-time to reduce downtime and energy consumption, improve safety and efficiency, and more.”

Dr. Barton told us, “This project offered a unique opportunity to work together with our industrial partners to deliver a demonstration framework for open architecture industrial IoT. Leveraging our digital twin architecture that was developed within the Smart Manufacturing Group, co-directed by myself and Prof. Dawn Tilbury, we were able to develop a real-world solution that demonstrates the potential of digital twins for wide-spread industrial use. Working on these sorts of industrial projects are really important for understanding how our research can be transitioned into practical applications.”

Congratulations, Dr. Barton.

Faculty featured in this story